44 results

  • Reconfigurable Terracotta Facades

    This study, completed by an interdisciplinary team from the University of Buffalo and Alfred University explores a thermal mass application using terracotta blocks that can be reconfigured for different seasons.

  • Designing With Composites: The Why, When and How

    When we say composites, the reference is Fiber-Reinforced-Polymer composites, FRP. The most common glues or the polymer matrix of FRP is polyester or epoxy-based resins with variations that boggle the mind.

  • Terracotta 1912 to 2018

    Center Three is a 100-year-old, one million square-foot building in Long Island City, New York that was constructed over the course of one year. It w…

  • Separating Direct From Diffuse

    An Enclosure-Integrated, Daylighting, Tracking Solar Collector (EIDTSC) has been developed for market which integrates into a building’s fenestration…

  • High-Performance Building Facades

    For architects, designers, engineers, manufacturers, consultants, and owners' representatives interested in methods for designing high-performance facades.

  • Facade Technology in Educational Methodology

    With facades becoming increasingly more complex, and performance a key objective, expertise becomes an important component of successful design proje…

  • Shaping Skin

    The conventional modern facade is essentially flat, which creates the tendency toward visual monotony and problems for modulating daylight—both on th…

  • Emissions Limits Critical to Climate Initiatives

    There have been 26 Conferences on Climate Change sponsored by the United Nations. The most recent conference, COP 26, was held in 2021 in Glasgow, Scotland. With 200 countries in attendance, all eyes were set on achieving the goal of limiting the rise in global temperature to 1.5 degrees Celsius.

  • 2021 Construction Forecast

    2020 has been an unusual year, to say the least, presenting a challenge to those entities keen on clarifying what the near future may hold and how it may impact industry performance. Following is a sampling of what some of these entities are saying, with links to more information.

  • Reconfigurable Terracotta Facade

    The traditional building facade as a permanent construction does not actively respond to the differing needs from varying weather conditions. Convent…

  • Sustainable Silicone

    Silicone materials have a long history in high performance building projects. Known for durability, they can reduce a building’s carbon footprint by …

  • Invert Auto-Shading

    Allowing sufficient amount of natural light while avoiding excessive sunlight penetration is often hard to achieve with static facade systems due to …

  • Active and Energy Autonomous Window featured image

    Active and Energy Autonomous Window

    Reducing GHG emissions related to energy use in buildings is a prominent obligation given their impact in terms of climate change. In this light, ene…

  • Adaptive Building Envelope

    Designing a multi-functional building envelope as an architectural façade, environmental interface and solar collector is a multi-objective explorati…

  • Tree Magic - The Overstory

    In this Pulitzer Prize winning novel by Richard Powers a series of fables is woven through a narrative populated by an expansive cast of unlikely characters, trees paramount among them; one a giant redwood named Mimas. Redwoods can live for thousands of years and grow to well over 300 feet tall.